Eaten it entire.”
Evillo waited in great awe.
“By which I mean,” Canja Veck amended gently, “as any story-maker will, that I see the future as well as the past. I think you have not,” he added, “drunk their vile brew of fermented erb berry. Good. It is named, like the similarly styled tea, less for its stimulous than for the sting included in over-imbibition. Since an actual erb, as you may know, is a combination of man, bear, lank-lizard, and demon. Or so certain sorces report.”
“Phandaal’s Purple Book?” hazarded Evillo, referring back to the Fabler’s tales.
Canja Veck shook his head. Mildly, he inquired, “What do you wish from me?”
Evillo felt that he could not speak. He spread his arms and gazed in desperation. “I wish — to live — the life of such a hero as Guyal — or Turjan — or Cugel! Cugel the most.”
“Callous and manipulative Cugel? Clever Cugel the fool?”
Evillo deemed himself incapable of constructing sentences. He put his hands into his filthy hair and tore it in frustration.
“Peace,” said Canja Veck. “Look how far already you have come from your beginnings. If you will be the hero of a story, that fate is yours to conjur. There lies the river, and there the ancient broken road that will lead you to Porphiron Scar, and thence to white-walled Kaiin.”
“And Almery—” whispered Evillo.
“A journey of long months,” said Canja Veck, cool as distant stars. “Unless your transport should be super- normal.”
Evillo, in a sort of exultant panic, stared out across the river to the road, which, when seen from this height, was narrow as a thread of woven flint. A shadow shifted, noiseless, sudden. Looking about, Evillo saw that Canja Veck had once more serenely vanished. The young man stood alone upon the brink of his destiny, and of the cliff. And in that second, a ghastly and insane shriek sounded from the air. Down swept a gaunt black bird, one third the size of a full-grown man, its scarlet beak levelled squarely at Evillo’s newly-woken heart. Whether it were self- determined or the misstep of terror, Evillo sprang straight off the spur, and, in another moment, was hurtling towards the river far beneath.
Three winds slapped Evillo’s face as he fell. Then he was dashed into the river, which, possibly irritated by his unanounced advent, beat him as severely as any Ratgradian. Plunged through silver water to black, Evillo grew unaware for an indeterminate duration.
This trance ended however when an opposite propulsion seized him. He was borne again upward and crashed back through the surface of the Derna, as if through a plate of exploding glass.
Evillo, fighting for breath, found himself held high in the air by the brawny arms of a blue-scaled and blackly scowling man-creature of considerable girth.
“By Pizca Escaleron, incomparable god of my race, how darest thou violate the sacred deeps of the river?”
“I—” attempted Evillo, as he choked forth a percentage of said deeps from his lungs.
“Cease thy verminous squeaks, thou minuscule! Whence camest thou, with such impertinent rush? Didst even knock, thou rustical? Nay, thou didst in no sort. Know, thou intruding inculco, that I, a mighty lord among the river Fiscians, was just then in exquisite dalliance with a fair lady of my realm, which delicious process thou, by thy foul and uninvited entrance, hath disrupted. Had I not sworn upon the eternal fins of peerless Pizca Escaleron, to take no more than three lives in any morning, and having already availed myself early of today’s quota, I would tear thee, limbs from torso, devour thine unworthy liver before thy degraded eyes, and cast thy remains into the realms of dreadful Kalu.”
“I—” attempted Evillo once more.
“Pearl-button thy lips, thou failed oyster. I am done with thee. Go forth and suffer!”
And with these and similar sentiments, the creature flung Evillo all across the Derna and into some bushes of stinging leaves beyond the road.
Evillo crawled from the bushes and presently sat by the highway.
In fact, the road was often broken up by the ingress of the river. The traveller would be forced to detour here and there among banks of thorn and tubegrass, from which fluted the usual inane whistling. Leagues off, so Evillo thought, the land seemed to check. This was perhaps Porphiron Scar? As shock abated, Evillo felt his eagerness return. And not long after, he noted a tall male figure striding over the terrain towards him.
When the man drew level, Evillo got to his feet.
“Pardon an ignorant nobody,” he cautiously began, “but does the city lie in that direction?”
The man was indeed very tall; his height was well above one and three quarter ells. Long black hair coursed to his waist, and his garments were the indigo and ebony shades of day sky and night. With dark blue eyes, he regarded Evillo. “My name,” said this man, “is Kaiine. What do you deduce therefrom?”
“That you are a citizen of the city of Kaiin?” immoderatly supplied Evillo.
“Which may, naturally,” said the man “be a false deduction. All of which you should certainly avoid. On the other hand, you are correct in my case. Be wary however, when you resume your trek, of the large and beautiful snail that lies in the grass at your feet.”
In surprise, Evillo glanced down and beheld the snail. The tall gallant had already disappeared around a bend in the road, but Evillo had been most impressed by the care the man had taken over the fate of a snail. Unwarned, Evillo might well have trodden upon it. How very sensitive and civilized therefore must be all Kaiinians!
Evillo prepared to step carefully over the snail, which was indeed attractive, with a jade tinge to its body, its shell a crystalline whorl. The snail spoke: “Forgive me, my friend, I could not but overhear your exchange with the Darkographer Kaiine. Are you en route to the city?” Evillo exalted. A snail which spoke! And was also urbane! This surely was the very stuff of fable, magic, and sophistication!
“I am.”
“Might I then trouble you to permit my accompanying you? I fear that you will need to port me, or I shall lag sadly behind. But I weigh little, and the occasional wholesome leaf or lactuca will sustain my existence. Nor do I crave any expensive alocholic beverages.”
Evillo conceded this, and raised the snail. He placed it on his left shoulder, from which vantage, as the snail explained, it could see the road as well as he.
For a while then, they progressed in silence. Evillo was shyly tongue-tied, if the truth were told.
Eventually, the snail inaugurated a brief conversation. “The man with whom you formerly spoke is, as I mentioned, a darkographer. You ask, what then is a darkographer? He is one who maps the world, before the sun goes dark and melds everything with shadow.
“But it may be that you are curious too as to the circumstances of my being here, so far from my house at Kaiin. It chanced, during pursuit of my livlihood, which is to cure burns by silkenly crawling across the afflicted area, that a rogue subdued me with a drugged lettuce and bore me off. He intended, he shamelessly confessed, to boil me with garlic to tempt his desired mistress, avile frog-eating harridan of Thamber Meadow, who is known to send men regularly to their deaths. My abductor meanwhile ranted that he had avoided someone unavoidable, by the simple expedient of not going near him, despite some inducement to do with a tapestry of gold, or some such yarn. Fortunately, another of the rogue’s fellowship, being displeased with him, came after, and slew my persecutor on the road. Unnoted during the proceedings, I escaped. Since then, I have spent six days and nights on my return journey.
“Yet enough of me. Let us discuss you. What do you seek in white-walled Kaiin?”
Evillo was nervous that he might bore his eloquent companion. Modestly, he replied, “I am only a peasant of no account. But even I have heard of the wonders of the city.”
“And your name?”
“I — call myself Evillo.”
The snail seemed to cogitate. “That is a name unfamiliar to me. I myself am known as Khiss.”
A couple more miles passed in quietness.
